Dental wax extruders of various design have been described in the past. Typically such devices are in the form of a gun or extruder, similar in some ways to a hot glue gun and possessing a heating element to heat the wax which is advanced manually, or by other means, in order to extrude wax for use in molds, dental prosthesis and other applications.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,831,815 to Glasgow discloses a dental wax extruder that uses hydraulic fluid to heat and pressurize a collapsible pre-packaged cartridge of dental wax whereby the wax is extruded from a nozzle.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,524,102 to Davis discloses a thermoplastic extruder for applying border molding to denture impression trays and includes thermoplastic sticks which are inserted into a dispenser with a heating element. The thermoplastic sticks are manually forced through a heated portion of the extruder which has heat exchange surfaces that can be shielded by a user's hand to control heat loss.
While the foregoing devices offer advantages for their intended use, problems persist for the dental lab practitioner and clinician. One issue is cording or tubing which tether the extruders to a power source that get in the way of the wax application process and negatively impact the quality of the work being performed. Another issue is wax degradation or unpredictable altering of its intended or recorded rheological properties. Although recent formulations of dental wax offer advantages with regard to workability at elevated temperature, the melting range tends to be more narrow than in the past. Zhang, Kehao “Rheological characterization of dental waxes” Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen 2004. Of particular concern is material degradation resulting from imprecise heating and fluctuating temperatures which can adversely affect wax properties to the extent that the wax must be discarded.
It would be desirable to provide a dental wax application system that includes a wax applicator, is relatively lightweight, untethered and easy to manipulate.
It would be further desirable if the foregoing system include a means to program and precisely regulate wax temperature within a range of +0.5 to −0.5 C for a selected wax in order to provide a regular flow of softened wax that can be maintained for extended periods at a selected temperature range in order to improve work readiness, optimize wax working properties and extend the life of the wax.